I was shocked by Ramani New NEO template and i was truly lucky to be at the time he unveiled it. the very second it was posted to be seen.

It is the FIRST Completely reworked and truly hacked template that uses the New Blogger engine and that is outlined by JSON and that works in a true Asynchronic form.

Some of the people i asked about the template tought that it was not as innovative as i was telling it was, they of course don´t have a clue how much work has to be put into it, and needs to be put into it to maintain it working flawlessly.

Now, it also marks a another first, because it is the first Ramani work in Blogger that you cannot get for free, that is true, but is also Ramani biggest work to date, and he is not offering just the code for a 10 dlls fee, you will get:

*Full installation of the template*Support*Previous Template Add-ons ported to your new Template*Upgrades*New Features adjusted for the template.

The first completed came to be by pure extension of what had originated the idea, and that was the original Native Search made by Aditya, so i can only guess that the minute aditya saw that i was asking for a new version, the minute he got into it because this was one of his most beloved hacks.

So, now you too can have this improved search in your blog,and the best of all is that is you got the H.P Blogger navbar or the navbar as it is, now you have two option to do your blog search, and that alone is worth it. in my case i like this search because it allows you to find the post you are looking way faster that making a regular search in the Blogger navbar, you get the search resultst in the same way you get them while searching google or live search without leaving your blog and without having to fiddle with the entire post reaload like the regular blog search built in the new Blogger.

this version has the added bonus of displaying the results in inputs of 10 at a time, and offering pagination depending on the number of results and changing from page to page in a very swift way.

You can test it in this blog search and if you like how it display, then go and grab the finished version at Aditya´s post.

This development is part of the Ideas Post call i did to the Bleet and beyond, as a way for anyone brave enough to take on a challange had something to munch on.

And Stephen as the man how is the definition of what Bleet stands took upon on making Lightbox GW work for Blogger.

Now, what it is Lightbox GW and why is better than the regular lightbox script, and that is because they can contain media on them, just like MS has took them back and they are using them in Soapbox in the best way i have seen yet, or how you can see Digg also using them now for they video redistribution, all of that is done by Simi-Modal windows, why they are called like that and where does this comes from?

The short version of the story is that someone that were doing web developments for displaying in IE got to do what he denomined as Sub-Modal windows, windows that didn´t neede to open a new browser window, but that opened inside the already opened window, but that were not really a window, but more like a evolution of a prompt dialog and the objective was to save transitions and to mantain the concentration of the user.

But this is not truly Sub-modal on the technical terms, but on the look of things that is really something you would don´t know just from seeing it works, so it is is more of a simil, hence the simi pfrefix, it is also called semi or quasi, but i preferend simi.

This never catched up at the time it was created, but thanks to Lokesh that did Lightbox the guys at Particle Tree went with the idea and developed Lightbox GW based on it.

Now, this can be a GREAT feature if used well, and it really represents for me what the new web must be. so please take a look at it.

So, that is all the story, now you only need to go to Singpolyma post for the code and details.

I will be sporting it in Bloggeratto very soon and talking more about it.

If someone had told me a 3 months ago that a CAT, was going to be worthy of being a Bleet so fast i would have called them crazy, but what do you know. it not only was a Cat, but a purple one that made it.

So, without much to Add, i am very happy Purplemoggy ported this singpolyma hacka, that remains one of my favorites from him and now is going to be usable in the new blogger..

This is a important hacks becuase it add personality to the comments, and it allows you see very quick who is commenting on your blog.

Internet Memes.. gotta love them, and more when they are Blog Memes, so, someone thought to do a forwarding chain post. the person who started shared five things about himself, and the tagged five people so they did it too.

The rest is history, viral things come and go but once you let out something like this internet Meme it can go around the internet for a long long time.

So, anyway, i was tagged by Efendi Kwok, and since he is my friend, i will comply to it.

Five Things you surely don´t know about me:

1.- i got online almost 12 years ago, on that time i have meet over 300 people in real life i first meet online. and from 12 different countries.

2.-I was quite a famous blogger at the lately nineties, i spurred a controversy, but there is no way you make me tell you who i was, and fortunately, no way someone can find out...

3.-I owned some domains i lost or selled later for profit that turned to be worth 10-100 times more the price i sold them, yeah i was pissed.

4.-One time some years back(more than 5), thinking i could pull it off like they did in the movies from the eighties,i dated 5 girls i meet from the internet and that i had never meet before on the same day, i started very early in the morning and i finished with the dates at 1am in the morning, i pulled it off pretty well, but at the last date, the last girl i meet had a companion, her companion was the first girl dated that day.... Hijinks ensued..... i survived barely.

They greeted me with " you are a sonnova....", things got hot from there up.

5.- I once recived a inivitation to see a "real" Role playing game session of Vampire the Masquerade (at one of the comic book stores i worked), when i got to this guy house, he had it all, even a little set, and they played it full custome and all, i was the only audience. things got weird when after in the night they jumped into the set to perform live sex acts (vampire style, i guess), once they finished they asked me: So, what do you think?

I said:

"Avant Garde" (triying not to laugh)

they sure were very happy after i told them that, and they invited me every time afterwards, never came back but i still went out with one of the vampire girls in that set one time.but that is another story.

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How about that 5 things you didn´t knew about me?, it was never specified how i needed to respond.

But if you want to read stories like that in a almost daily basis, i recommend you to read my personal blog when i open it.

I got one thing i wish people knew when talking to me:

I am mexican not from the U.S.A, Mexico is in North America, not south america, and yes mexico is also a United States Republic thank you very much.

Invox is the post thread where i will answer the questions you send my way

This time the questions is a more serious thing, i have been asked this very question a lot , and i mean a lot lately but the last time came from a very scared Chaim

I'm deathly afraid of what will happen if I switch. I have tons of hacks and customized template editing on my blog. Will all that carry over or will I have to start from scratch and redo all my hacks and customization?

This talk about how big is the desinformation of what happens when you switch to the new blogger (v3.0), so i am going to answer this in a very serious way:

1.-Emu v2.0 at v3.0( Old blogger engine running emulated on the new blogger)

This is the mid transition point, i am in it too, and there are five things you need to know even when you are running your old template and blog in this version:

As time passes i am more convinced that if Phydeaux3 is not a journalist by day, then he should have been one, he sure loves scoops and he deliver them in a very insightfull fashion and his last scoop could not be at a better timing.

The scoop is about how Blogger image hosting changed ip and direction which turned very quiclky from something odd into the confirmation that Blogger was going about to be launched for good but that is also proved that the long long delayed Picasa integration with Blogger was prepared to be at the same time that the announcement of Blogger final launch.

Now, the question that remains is how this integrtion is going to be apart from dramaticly increazing the fold of Picasa.

My take

I think that Blogger will be adding a new tab into blogger just for that, but the tab will only serve as a gallery of what you have uploaded from blogger, so the real action is going to be at Picasa Web Albums, and since we are now all using Google Accounts (and to think about the critique they had about Yahoo unified accounts at the beggining), that should be done so you are forced to use Picasa and to show users that this integration is a serious thing, this , belive it or not, is good. it is the very same kind of integration Yahoo did with Yahoo Photos and Y!mail, and oh boy if it not did wonders for their photo fold.

So, my prediction:

Upload, sort and loosely manage photos from blogger picasa tab at the dashboard control, manage, photo blog and go crazy at picasa web albums, why?, becuase Google is also going to add a very capable online Photo Editor as i just got to know, because remmeber that the promised new picasa is still not officially launched.

I also predict that it will be also something similar for gmail if this goes all the way.

I mean, why then to link thing into picasa if there is not going to be integration? that would not make any sense..

I expected this press release at 23 or at 30 of december but i guess Blogger will be sended off to enjoy holidays before that, so it semed about right to do it while they can.

In either way am happy about it, no more pretending BETA cover.

So, that is it,Pete just got it out in official form at the latest Blogger buzz post.

Now, as always,there is interesting stuff to review beyond the PR blogging yadda yadda, so skip that very very weird part about world of warcraft and the Battlestar Galactica analogy and move into the meaty bits:

1.-Blogger Homepage

new homepage location, sporting redirection to www2.blogger.com, and a new inviting graphic to try out Blogger, it always came back to the dual log in asynchronic form format, but now, you can log direclty to v3.0 from the form, and you get redirected to another form for v2.0 which is the opposite to what i was before this.2.-Blogger Dashboard Advert

Get used to this little buddy now above your dashboard main page because it is here for a while until most of the userbase gets migrated.

i like the detail of the crossed over beta word in it..that is for sure.

It sport a link to the new featues tour that remained the same, but it is now being "remarked"3.-Pete PR Pitch

On thing i love about Blogger is their saucy overdone marketing pitches

let´s have a look at it to make some important notes:

The new version of Blogger is metaphorically bursting with features, from the big guns like drag-and-drop template editing and post labels (which are perfect, by the way, for indexing the 131 historical figures you may have written about), to little polishes like a better-designed Dashboard or that you no longer need to solve a word verification CAPTCHA to post a comment on your own blog.

Very metaphoricaly speaking i guess where he says that is bursting with features.

the good note here is that it poits out to a blog author status log in, this meas that when you are in your blog you will not be forced to solves CAPTCHA to replay at your commenters.

i wonder if that is also true for the moderation glitch that made you to authorize your own comments before publishig them? my guess is that is should be that way.

This is cool, it was a niggle that everyone hated.

We’re done with “beta,” but we’re far from done with the new Blogger.

That is what i hope so, but just looking from what i know, and what is about to be made official this seems to be true for now.

It’ll still take a bit more transition time to move everyone from the old version to the new

Not surprises there as i had been telling everyone, there is no way that Blogger has now over 60% of the userbase migrated, but it was only 60% wht it was needed to be migrated for them to declare it launched.

If you’ve been using the beta, either because you switched or because you created your account after 10 November 2006, click “New Blogger” and sign in with your Google Account.

i find this interesting since it shows the exact date the started to make new accounts into v3.0 the norm.4.-Why the switching rush?

Simple, since all the servers used in v3.0 are new, it means that having people in v2.0 is costing them resources,staff ad money to mantain now that it has been declared officially a Zombie.

--

Well, if you are now able to switch, i also ask youto do it, there is nothing better that starting the new year from the scratch up for it to feel fresh. or if you feel like you need more time, then swith and remain in emu v2.0 while you port yourself into the new template languague and get to use the new engine at full effect.

I already know that most don´t use Picasa, but if you do and if you haven´t entered in a while because they never have something interesting, the you might wanna know that you don´t need a workaround anymore to post a simple picasa albums widget into your blog if you don´t want to.

Because now you got the option to grab the embedable code from your web album page:

v2.0

In the case of v2.0 it is just a matter of drop t in you sidebar or in a post, simple as that.

v3.0

Drop it into a Post if you want, and if you want to have it in your sidebar, just add it asa Html/js page element and it will work perfectly.

Someone asked me if i didn´t considered a drag having to re-write chucks of code into the post tiem and time again.

I answered that i didn´t wrote reusable code into the post becuase i droped all the most common code i use into the post template so it appear every time i write a new post, but it resulted that the person who asked me didn´t know there were a post template to do this..

but fret not, becuase in a display of good timing, Annie wrote a post about it that you can find here:

Lets finish this post series with the other important but overlooked points in the matter.

Part 3: The Externals

I.-Looking At Blogger from a service point of view.

Before the craze that eat all of the Blogger public mindshare came (hublogs with their social networking) Blogger was THE place to pimp out services,and offer them to the users.

There was only one problem, after Google buyout of Blogger, they were not longer interested in offer deals with third party services, list them or even give them a pat in the back with some PR blogging.

That was the problem that left Blogger behind too, just look not only at the usal suspect(WP), but look at almost any of the other true Blogging platforms. all of them make out deals, promotion packages, list useful services, and give some PR love.

Not Blogger, why?, my guess is that Google command saw it as a sign of brand weakness so they really didn´t wanted to mess with it, something that was proved to be a web 1.0 way of thinking later on when the monster of Myspace took of developing a 500 million dlls economy for third party services, tht in reflection generated money to myspace, they noticed late, but they did, and they have to suck up to most of them making money out of they ecosystem.

In the case of Myspace, you could say they can give themselves the luxury of it becuse they are te media darling, they can´t, but they realized it unlike Blogger, so what Myspace did?, churned out their OWN internal services to answer the external ones, and that for the most part is resulting very well with a porjection of expectec revenue for 2007 in all cleared money of over 300 million dollars minimum, 300 millions of pure profit. is not that insane???

but even then, the third pary services economy will mantain itself at 500 million for the next year... even with Myspace auto-conservationist practices..

And then we got Blogger with a registered(made,not used or active) userbase of over 90 million blogs.

If you are wondering, what have those Blogger unrelated numbers to do with Blogger external services management.

They are a point of reference, lets remember how many years has blogger around, let´s remember what i said in the last part abou Blogger being a unexploted Gold mine.

That is what i am talking about, why Google don´t want to make serious money from Blogger?,. why it don´t stand to their so pushed angle of being a reference of what is the now and the future?.

Why their PR Sucks?,Why their other serices dealings sucks??

and no, this was not said by me it was also said by others, even Robert Scoble, when he talked about how scarce it was for such a wonderful company...

II.-What about the service side?:

There is not much that a service can do, but play nice, support Blogger, something that most do, but services gotta have o find their biz model, they gotta find their way of having fluidity of money for development.

So, it is not surprise that they follow where the money is, and this case it is in social networking and hublogs first, the other True Blogging platforms becuase they provide good publicity and recognition, and after all that, they think on Blogger..

it is not that patethic??

but who can blame them, if i were a service,and i see that blogger is a lived up by my service as dead man, i have no choice but to put the other platforms and format first.

III.-The New Blogger

Now, Blogger is changing faster now, and has tried to recopu even if slowly from their old vices, they opted for the gdata API because of the level of integration it could provide to other services, and becuase it allowed to create other developments like what we have seen in the for of the one click widgets, and what i expect will be more advanced widget creators.

However funnily enough, it has been pushed more in a user powered angle thant for a third party services use, nothing has been mentioned on that matter in a solid way, so that is where one has to woder how it will be this time, we need that google remember that they cannot treat Blogger as a Google labs app, because it is not only a service, but their most independent platform.

And if they don´t want third party services support, how about providing them direclty, after all, they are "the Google" right?.

If it is money what they re worry about, they just need to rethink Blogger profitning, and i assure you that the money would start flowing..

IV.- The Right Path

Blogger suddenly realized how wrong they have been and rushes to be more accomodating to third party service, they rush to make deals and they care for the externals, wht they would need to do:

1.-Blogger Service Integration Support Center

A site powered and supervised by Blogger/google where brand can pitch themselves to google, and request for integration help, Blogger provides of what they need to do it so, and mantains a third party services directory.2.-Blogger Third Party PR Blog

Unless Blogger buzz would suddenly turned into 100% PR talking, it is needed a blog to promote, list and pimp the recent deals, promotion and services now supporting Blogger. it is just needed.

3.-Blogger Services Help

A documentation repository for services where all tutorials and needed knowledege about Services supporting Blogger must be for later reference.

I think those 3 things, welll focused and mantained would do a great turnaround to Blogger damaged reputation into the right direction.

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And that is who this long post series ends, no matter if you liked or hated what i tlked here, the importat part is that you can have a personal opinion beyond if you are a fan oof Google or not.

Invox is the post thread where i will answer the questions you send my way

Welcome to another post thread series that will not be hard to mantain for a change, and that is answering the questions you leave behind for me to answer, the best or more worthy of being publicly known will be answered in the blog for everyone to read, so send your question, and they even will include a linkback to your blog if suitable.

I know it got nothing to do with the post, but can you "satisfy" my curiosity about your blog´s name?

Why Bloggeratto?

Umm, it is a very simple question and easy answer but since it is about the blog name, and i have been asked about it like 10 times before i guess that new visitors and regulars alike could benefit from the answer being spotlighted even if it serves for a one "ah" second.

The Answer is:

A time back when i was still fiddling with the idea of opening this blog, i had another name in mind: Bloggerati.

I thought about putting it like that or adding something to it to round up the concept i wanted to transmit with the name.

I didn´t went through with bloggerati for two reasons:

1.-there was already a bloggerati registrated2.-It sounded like i wanted to rip off from the technorati name asociation.

I had to find another word.

You see, the word technorati is also a slang word, a slang word based on italinglish.

It is on it´s own right a made up word that works right, that blends with english since it is intended as a reference word, and it means: someone that knows/study/explore technology.

I wanted exactly the same kind of slang word.

So, i just looked for a equal italinglish exercise:

Someone who knows/study/explores Blogger: Bloggeratto

There you have it, the weird/funny/boring story of why blogeratto, and what the word means.

Many could say that it was too much thinking just to choose a name, but i love choosing names, when i write something i am quite the oddball, i start with the name.this of course only applies when i am looking for the story and not when the story finds me first.

Not that long ago Hoctro asked for ideas on what to hack next in Blogger v3.0

I got some ideas, archiving anyone of them would turn you anyone into Bleet on my eyes.

1.- In Main All Results Ajax Search Widget With Pagination

What i do mean by this, simple, let imagine the recent Hoctro In-Main Ajax search but that displays not just Some Results but All Of them as avaible and can distribute them in a customizable form of 5,10,15 results at a time.

the hack installation could be in anyform, it is a complex thing so, i am not expeting a widget creator or a one-click thing.

The addon that does look like this is the Live Search addon, if you need other reference on how it would look like.

2.-Asynchronic Expandable Zones/Modules

This is one of the hardest i guess, it would need to work exaclty as Gaby de Wylde Expandable Post Zones like this one:

This post zones can be used as both E.P.Z and a expandable Modules to put in the sidebars or to contro from the sidebar to the main.

the only catch here would be to be able to have the as ASYCHRONIC EXPANDABLE ZONES, i have talked with aditya and once with Singpolyma who thought it was a good idea, but both of them are very busy right now, Aditya with college and Singpolyma with college and with the Inline Comment Form hack, so why not share it with everyone?.

So, why to make this?, just think about it, expandable modules that donñt count to the inital load of the blog allowing for speedier blog first impressions, unlimited amount of crap in the sidebars, the option to have inline comments loading in asynchronic form, expandable post content like we have now but also made that way so if you are mantaining embedable videos or else, they don´t affect you, the reasons are endless.

3.- User Customization Module

Just imagine that instead User Them Switching they could choose Color, layout, banners? with a user module replicated from the Blogger Layout control Module that also has persistence thanks to some cookies?*Update:

Purplemoggy got the right example of what would be perfect to have, and i´ll be damned, it is a wordpress thing.

I will be reiterating this again: you can ask me away whatever you want,request hacks, articles, you name it, and you got 5 ways to do it so:

1.-IM (gtalk,msn,yahoo,icq and aim)2.-Chat by Plugoo, not matter if it says offline or busy, the messages reach me, just put you e-mail and i will reply back.3.-E-mail 4.-Comments in the blog5.-By phone (if you know it of course)

Ok, now, leaving that behind, let pass to some doubts that S.W had:

she asked recently about a comments problem she had to which i already replied, and before that she said:

Hey Avatar,

I need a map to find my way through your blog. I link to you through my own blog, and as soon as your page opens, I feel like Alice in Wonderland while she is very small, knocking on a great big door, hoping someone will hear me and rescue me, but knowing no one will. I wish you would come visit me, where I know how to navigate.

I don't know when I'll ever learn. I knew the moment I told someone that I'm getting used to Beta and actually like it now, something would go wrong and I'd end up eating my words. Serena Joy and Steve G have both been having login problems, and I told them how I solved the problem, but pointed them over here. You know, now that I think about it, I never get a straight answer from them when I ask if they're still having a problem.

Anyway, I'm having a login issue with Beta, and I'd like to get your advice. Actually, you should come and do a clinic over at my blog and let all the people I know who are having issues pick your brain. A few people have been talking about making the switch, but are worried because of what they've heard about it. Or is that like asking the Pope to come give us a blessing? I'm not clear on whether you do this for fun or profit, because it might as well be Chinese to me. I understand about 1/10 of what I see on your blog. And of course, I'm lost. Don't take it personally. I get lost in my own back yard. Please, if you find the time, will you come see me, or send me an e-mail?

And yanno what? You never did give me an answer when I asked you what you write.

Thanks, Avatar

Ok, let´s see:

I was really shocked when you told me that redhead, but i guess that you feeling lost must be on what the technicalities of the posts imply or talk about i hope.

i do try to make an effort and make the posts as easy to follow as possible without extending myself too much, but i will be having that in count.

Visiting your blog from the inside would not be a problem, i will write you to ask you for the keys.

You can quote this post and send anyone with problems to this post so they know how much i mean that it is not a problem to answer questions.

I do it because i am a very stubborn man with a set of principles so solid set in stone that it is almost scary, i know that this don´t fully answers your question but, let´s just say that Bloggeratto was not my first blog but my tenth blog, and that my first blogs were actually popular some years back, but they had nothing to do with this, and back then i did it for both profit and fun.

The login proble with beta it actually a corruption that generates in the browser, you must free the cache and cookies of your browser, close it and restart, it should be solved then.

And, no i don´t take this as a personal thing, i know you like me, well but who dosen´t right? ;)

About what a kind of writer i were?, i was a fast fiction writer at the start, scripter later and finally a novelist, weird progression, but that is how it happened with me.

One of the thing i like the most about Hans is that HE CARES about everyone, and i mean everyone, why? well, he just did a widget creator for Blogger FTP users, if that is not extra care, i don´t know what it is.

And i am not saying the rest of the Bleet don´t cares, it is just that Hans went a extra mile, and anyone who states otherwise can discuss it here.

Anyway, the drill is the same as with the other widget creators, the only thing that changes is the target users for it, so if any of you know a FTP Blogger, let him know about this.

Theme switching is nothing new at all, but Purplemoggy did something great by adding a full blown tutorial along pre-made theme/layout switching files so it is more than imperative to take advantage of all of it.

The concept is simple, to offer your visitor the choice to choose what style they like the most within a click of time. and since the theme have persistence, they will always see that as the default theme of your blog, well, at least until they clear they cookies.